e e e e e e good evening welcome to a regular meeting of the in East Windsor Regional School District Board of Education written advance notice of this meeting was provided at least 48 hours ago such notice provided the time date and location of this meeting and included the agenda to the extent it was known at that time notice of this meeting has begin in accordance with law minutes of this meeting are being kept by the board secretary and will be made available promptly to any member of the public requesting them from the board secretary at 25A Leen Lane heightstown New Jersey minutes will be provided at cost and in accordance with board policy are there any board members present who believe this meeting to be in violation of the open public meetings act there being none we may proceed in compliance with the fire code of the state of New Jersey I call your attention to the emergency exits for this room which are located on the back and the side please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance ITC having read the materials received I approve the agend I I move the agenda to be approved as submitted second P the board please M Drake yes M Murphy yes yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss Salter yes Miss callia yes Miss laruso yes item D be it resolved that the East Windsor Regional School District May hold two closed sessions at this meeting the closed sessions concern Hib report of April 5th 2024 Personnel non-tenured administrator update Arisa negotiation update minutes of these closed sessions will be made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists second any questions pull the board Please Mr Drake yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss Salter yes Miss Kia yes Miss laruso yes we'll now move on to the student representative report thank you this past Friday the well anticipated event of Junior Prom took place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Princeton students who attended were dismissed from school at 10:30 to get ready and the event itself began at 6 it was raining earlier in the day which was worrying as we were unsure if the students would get the chance to take pictures outside thankfully the rain stopped early enough that the traditional photo event at Association Park was still able to take Place everyone looked incredible in their dresses and suits and it only stirred the excitement over the upcoming senior prom in June but senior prom is not the only event the class of 24 is looking forward to over the next two months there are a number of events that have the entire grade very excited decision day is set for May 1st with the car parade taking place on May 7th we are very excited to be celebrating the next chapters of our lives and seeing where everyone is headed the class officers have also set up a dinner cruise on May 15th other events include senior Awards on June 4th and prom on the 7th ending with graduation June 18th we have a lot to look forward to as we close out our time at heightstown all of our spring sports are in the competition phase of the season and the athletes continue to put their best effort forward we have a new addition this year with the boys volleyball team in the midst of their first season the girls team was a success back in fall and I'm happy to say that the boys are following the same path I hope this program continues to grow in the coming years with the end of the third marking period on Friday we are in the final quarter of this school year nearly everything is set for the following year with schedules being finalized and the seniors preparing for graduation clubs are in the process of setting up their endof Year events and beginning to think about next year's leadership student council has begun to plan our annual ramb Boozle event taking place the first week of June we have seen excellent work from the student body throughout the first part of Year and hope to see it continue through the final two months that concludes my report for tonight thank you thank you so much does anybody have any questions then we will move on to the St student safety data overview okay good evening everyone I'm going to just introduce um kind of what we're looking to engage in this evening so so uh state of New Jersey requires school districts to report uh incidents related to obviously hip violence vandalism this used to be called like the violence and vandalism report at one point in time not a very appealing report uh but it does there's certain incidents that we we're required to enter into a system there's two reporting Windows um and uh there a is's a January through June um and there's two reporting mechanisms that should be shared with the board each year so tonight Lauren OB Brien our our supervisor of counseling but also our anti-bullying coordinator so she works with our anti-bullying Specialists each of our schools will provide the data uh that's been collected we're actually going to share tonight two reporting windows so uh the first reporting window will be captured from last the end of last school year year uh January through June she will also share information from reporting period one for this school year from September through December um so that the next uh window will close in terms of us reporting that'll be August of this year and then we are uh we have another window to report period two from this year and that will be between September and December of 24 so with that said I'm going to turn things over to Lauren hi everyone so um I want to just start by talking about what the student safety data actually is um so it's required by the Department of Education all districts report twice a year as Mr Daniels mentioned um and what school districts are required to report falls into those categories that are on the screen and I'm going to go into a little bit a bit more detail in a few minutes about what kind of uh criteria the state is looking for for an incident to qualify under one of those categories so these are just overviews in the coming slides you'll see that I am going to break it down by categories for each school um this is the report period for the end of last year so this shows us uh February 1st through July or you know the end of June for the end of last school year and you'll see that uh I'll just go over our totals quickly and then we'll talk about them uh in a little more depth in the individual categories for violence we had 25 incidents um what is this next one I can't see it can you see on your okay vandalism uh so we had a total of three um then substances is the next category total of 34 incidents weapons three and Hib confirmed which I'll go into a little bit more detail about that uh that was at 14 for the end of last year so then here's the overview for report period one of this year uh for violence we had a total of incidents and vandalism zero substances 16 weapons one and Hib confirmed uh we have had 12 for this report period so now I have a side by side of each of the report periods um so you can take a look at some of those numbers just in a little bit more detail for each category it's important to just take a look at what types of incidents qualify as violence under this category so um up on the screen it's assault fight um kidnapping really the majority of the incidents that re are reporting our student fights um and we do have a couple of uh simple threats that are also included in our numbers if you take a look um high school and middle school kind of make sense is where you're going to see the majority of these incidents or all of them in this case so last year for report period to we did have three incidents of vandalism and uh zero incidents so far this year if you take a look at what constitutes uh vandalism it's pretty straightforward um the incidents that we see are generally damaged to property substances so uh for report period to we had a total of 34 26 at the high school eight at the middle school what's important to keep in mind if you look up here you'll see up at the top are uh offenses related to The Following substances so alcohol marijuana um there's drug paraphernalia so that's another one that even if we don't necessarily find a student with a substance on their person um if we find drug paraphernalia that's something that's going to be reported under this category substances that we do not report for this for these purposes um are tobacco and also any medicine that a student is allowed to have per their their health plan next category is weapons so again uh pretty straightforward the examples that are given about what types of things qualify as a weapon uh last year we had a total of three two at the high school one at the middle school this year so far just one weapon at the high school so here's a snapshot of our HIV information for this particular report period um again middle and high is where we see the most cases where we do the most investigations you will see a couple in the elementary schools um so any allegation that we investigate and is found to be HIV which you know as part of board minutes um you all see those reports for every meeting um for the the HIV cases that were confirmed so these are the anti-bullying Specialists here in the district um as Mr Daniels mentioned I'm the anti-bullying coordinator uh all of the anti-bullying Specialists happen to be counselors so they are staff members who are under my supervision um in this instance and also as counselors and I'll talk a little bit more about what the anti-bullying Specialists do essentially they're the ones in every building who conduct the investigations for um any claim that we're going to investigate of harassment intimidation and bullying so since we're talking about um all of our ssds categories and um you know all the different things that that have happened in these two report periods I wanted to talk about some of the things that we're doing both in re in reaction to some of these things and then also proactively so one of the things I think that comes to mind right away for some of these things is discipline and um what the principles and assistant principles have all kind of been working together on is consistency of consequences so depending on on what the infraction is what type of incident happened they're all Consulting about what they think the consequences should be keeping them consistent um if there are students who have you know multiple things happening what else can we do are we going to escalate those consequences possibly um and what other practices can we engage in to support students to eventually you know help some of these behaviors to subside so that brings me to restorative practices so um this is kind of a category within itself and um just a couple of things to highlight at the high school we're using a platform called navigate 360 and um we had this platform probably five or six years ago preco and what it is is it's a bunch of different modules that students can be assigned to they go through the modules there's a reflective component at the end and it's it's kind of like a teaching slash counseling uh tool that counselors can use to then talk to students about their behavior um you know consequences of their actions those types of things we're also looking at in school suspension so in some cases a consequence might be a combination of out of school suspension or OSS and in school suspension um within our in school suspension both at craft and the high school this year we are have added um counseling support and also some academic support So helping students we don't want them to lose time in their classes while they're in in school suspension or out of school suspension so that's something that's been added this year um in a more consistent way so the other thing is student mediation so in both craps and the high school the assistant principl in the counselors are working on mediation with students how can we kind of get to them and talk to them about what's going on uh maybe before it happens so some of that is conflict resolution between students problem solving um so that it doesn't escalate to something to something more at creps uh they're leveraging some community service opportunities for some students that might maybe aren't so engaged or maybe are having some difficulty with their peers as a way to sort of draw those students in um give them something to work on with their uh with other students and those opportunities this year are at the uh Trenton area soup kitchen and they do a Mercer County cleanup so in addition um counselors are involved in a lot of these things we always say counselors don't do discipline but they do a lot of the followup that happens after discipline uh so they'll do individual meetings with Stud students um certainly often times when an HIV case is confirmed part of the remedial measures that we put in place is going to be counseling um maybe uh some kind of group counseling setting and then certainly the Student Assistance counselors both at creps and the high school are involved with any student who is involved in a substance infraction okay so now we get to some of the HIV programming so surrounding harassment intimidation and bullying we want to look at school climate and culture and one of the ways that we do that are the school climate and safety teams which are in every building and their role is to review discipline data they also take a look at uh HIV cases that they've had in that particular building they're looking for friends in terms of what types of HIV cases are we seeing and then what do we do about it how do we uh provide programming support counseling to students so that we can uh reduce some of those incidents week of respect happens in every building uh each October the week of respect is to raise awareness about bullying uh we run some anti-bullying assemblies d do some school spirit activities that week um and Red Ribbon Week activities not directly related to HIV that's really more um preventative for drugs and alcohol Red Ribbon Week and that also runs in every building we also have seal lessons happening throughout the district uh so that's in classrooms and some of the data that the school safety teams review and some of the trends that they see those lessons will be developed directly from where we are seeing areas of need in in that area in each individual building something that we also had a couple years ago um and we're kind of bringing it back this year is a stop it platform so um that's something where students can report any kind of bullying incident or actually anything we've gotten a few different reports um about all different kind kind of things through stop it it's Anonymous uh we have access to it as soon as the student puts in a report about something of concern in their building we can see that and address it as soon as possible so trainings are really important when we look at um harassment intimidation and bullying the Law changes every now and again there's new things that we need to do or new things that we need to be aware of so each year this is just an example of of some of the training that happens all staff districtwide are required to train um building faculty meetings often there's uh one that's dedicated to uh recognizing bullying how a report bullying um new teacher orientation every year I get up and talk to our new staff uh about bullying and the law every year we refresh as administrators in our Sumer Retreat and I do hold meetings with uh the the anti-bullying Specialists a few times a year and we get together we review some of our cases some of the cases that maybe we found to be the most challenging where we were you know kind of on the fence or really looking for collaboration in terms of how we were going to uh kind of rule on the case so we do that and also uh it's my responsibility to make sure that the abss are trained every year that they have have a formal training so that they're up to speed on everything so I think that that might be that's my last slide questions I don't know if Mr Dan is want to add anything or just go to questions we can start with questions thank you Lauren hi I did just have a a question so um are you able to let us know what is the Ty um I guess as far as violence substance and weapons in the district like what are the typical things that we usually see so violence is going to be student fights um and it's it's not many but that's the M that's in this case um I did kind of pull this down right before I came down here it is student fights and two uh threats simple threats which is generally a threat to a assult someone or fight someone um weapons just go through here sorry weapons uh we have not had any firearms in the building or anything like that I know that for this report period at heightstown high school it's was a pocket knife so you know that pocket knife may have been found you know it didn't appear as though there the student had any nefarious intent to use that knife however you're in a school building you have a knife and there needs to be a consequence for that in terms of substances what we are seeing is uh marijuana drug paraphernalia um and an incident or two regarding alcohol so it's interesting is I think we hear a lot about vaping and we know that that's something that um a lot of adolescents are doing for the most part um if a if a vape is found we do have testers where the assistant principal can test that vape and check to see is there evidence of marijuana or is it Tobacco um it's important to note that while tobacco isn't something that's included in this report there are certainly consequences for a student who found uh to be using tobacco in any building okay thank you um how would you say that these numbers what's the trend been over the past you know few years I have to say I think it's it's pretty static uh we don't have a lot of you'll see report period to report period that it might go up a little bit but but generally when you look at the entire school year it kind of rounds out I tend to see that report period two is a little bit busier you know I was thinking that yeah the students are warmed up and you know they're they're ready to go so I I think that that is a trend that we see but I think year overy year there's not a whole lot of of movement or change okay and then for vandalism does that only count if the student is caught let's say you know we were talking about soap dispensers being broken in the in the bathroom you might not know who did that would that count no okay so vandalism so all of these numbers where we get these numbers from our student information system they're directly tied to a student so when a student was issued a consequence for that infraction um that's where that comes from so if it's if it's an episode of violent uh vandalism and we don't know what happened overnight or something like that we we don't tie it to anybody hi Lauren who makes up our school climate team so School climate teams are a variety in every school there will be a teacher counselors an administrator there is a parent representative on a school safety team sometimes the nurse is on the this the the school safety team I think that's everything but it's usually more than that there's usually you know more people in the room to kind of brainstorm and and come up with some ideas for the the fights if it's tied to a student is this so let's say there's two students fighting does that count as two incidents or just one um I was kind of I was looking into this we were talking about it actually Dennis and I were talking before this it's two any other questions you know what Lauren I have a question we talked a little bit about this uh last week in terms of looking at the data I mean obviously that you know um how do we have a sense of our compare not to get too caught up in comparing but is there anything that we can lean on as it relates to similar districts in terms of profile makeup and and than the numbers so we were slightly below the state average so they don't when you look at all of the uh Essa performance reports there's no percentages so it doesn't account for how big the district is um but there was one thing that I saw where the state average was um over two incidents per 100 students and we came out to be 1.9 so we are below we are you know we're below what the average is listed for for the entire State I don't know how um you know relevant comparison that is but that helps sure thank you Ling on to superintendent report good evening again um just a couple of announcements tonight first one will be under the congratulator umbrella tonight before this meeting at 5:30 in the High School auditorium there was a written out loud uh call it celebration author celebration uh if you recall we we've been kind of engaged in a partnership with written out loud for the past couple of years um um concept is that students kind of tap into their creativity and it enables them to co-author U books so um we found that to be um really impactful especially for some of our students who may not always feel or see themselves as writers uh just really tapping into some of of their talent also you know speaking to a notion of collaboration as it relates to sharing of ideas tonight was a celebration we had about 180 students who were kind of recognized and celebrated for their work and they had the opportunity to uh go home tonight with their own book that they share um you know their fingerprints on as it were in terms of serving as authors so definitely want to congratulate each of those students um I think it's a very valuable program that we have within our school district and I uh commend the curriculum department for uh kind of making us aware of it shared this information last week uh we have take your child to work dat on April 25th Thursday April 25th just really for families in particular uh we shared that that day obviously will count if you're going to have your your your child your student um go to work with you on that day I I would encourage you to communicate that via the the parent portal uh there was some how to directions in terms of uh notifying us of that absence on that day that's not the only way to do it but is probably the most convenient way uh so please do that I i' encourage you to do it in advance obviously of of that day um to notify the school of your child's absence for all students who remain in school they they'll follow their regular program on that day reminded this week we are scheduled to have our third strategic planning meeting in this very same location um just to kind of refresh our Collective memories um you know we met our second meeting uh last month uh that topic of the meeting was creating a shared Vision uh for the for the school district participants were as to think about you know in addition to the programs that we that we value uh currently within the district if you were to kind of you know forecast and foreshadow five years from now um you know what are some things that that folks want would like to see that we believe would reflect successful schools uh within our district so um there were a number of groups that were kind of forming consensus brainstorming we had a gallery walk that night from that there was some goal areas some broad goal areas that emerged I shared with them at the last meeting uh that was student centered learning uh Staffing or Personnel Community engagement facilities and finance and uh culture and climate so um when we reconvene this week uh the goal will be to um review the outcomes from meetings one and two U kind of refine some goal statements based on those broader areas and then look to to develop some objectives and strategies uh connected to those five areas that I just shared so Wednesday April 17th 6: PM right here I believe the meeting is scheduled to conclude at 7:30 actually might be a little early I think the meeting is usually 600 to 7:30 I feel like this last one might be a little shorter ending but six o'clock nonetheless you can uh RSVP via the website you don't have to I would just encourage folks to uh if you have time uh please attend we've had uh decent participation thus far between 50 and 60 participants so I think it's creating some um healthy discussion and idea sharing so looking forward to Wednesday and uh with that that concludes my report thank you does anyone have any questions then we will move on first opportunity for board member comments any board members wish to make a comment yes I kind of wanted just Pig you back off of uh what Mr Daniel said written out loud had a book ceremony today and it was awesome and it this District never ceased to amaze me as far as the different programs we have um my son and I we even attended the SpongeBob musical talk about mindblowing I it really looked like a real production at a theater and it was it was awesome so I just I just love the programs thank you Jean you probably have your own written out loud library at your house anyone else with any comments hi uh I just want to let you know guys we are having our first ever sign Symposium uh supported by our district uh this Saturday from 9:30 to 12:00 p.m. in the cafeteria there'll be team based building they'll be showing their exhibition of their projects based on stamp approach so all are welcome to please come just drop by say hello to the kids who are participating in the event it would really help us you know build their Morales and approach to innovation in this District I'm looking forward to seeing everyone there and thank you so much again just to follow up on the written out loud do we have have we done any data to see how that's impacting the student performance and if it's helpful is there any thought to pushing it down to or encouraging lower achieving students to participate I think we have looked at the correlation um between students who participate sometimes it's difficult when the students may only do one uh you know one session I think he's trying to get like a little bit more of a longitudinal lens on that and yeah we definitely want to make sure that we're trying to appeal to students who may not always see themselves as being as academically inclined that's one of the although it does attract students who are academically inclined as well but I think that the fact that written out loud tends to um kind of veil it in more of an actor lens in kind of a a little bit more of a um creative space um you know if I the way we look at it is like this if students are writing then they're reading and vice versa and and if they're adding an element of creativity to that as well we think that's kind of really honoring the spirit of what we want to do educationally so um we'll continue to look at that to see if there's a direct correlation because sometimes it's hard to to tie into it because it's not technically something we would deem as being a remediation program of sorts but I just think it's something in addition to what they're they um doing and also having the ability to apply some of those skills that we're teaching them throughout the day so I'll get back to you regarding the data piece um but I in terms of the Outreach I can't speak to that right now I'm saying you want to speak to just how we're trying to kind of cast that net to see if we can encourage some students who may be reluctant writers or readers to participate e e where are those are those sessions held I know when my kids did it it was during the pandemic so it was different are they after school oh it's after and it's remote right it's remote there's two sessions coming up this spring and also this summer thank you an email supposed to be going out does anyone else have any questions or comments just one one more um thank you for sending over the the budget info I'm still going through because I just started today um but the listing of projects and I know we said that we're going to be looking at it again this summer do we have a list of which ones of those we completed yeah I can indicate on that list which ones we completed absolutely um I just wanted to give a congratul rations to the high school robotics team um they did make it all the way to the district level which was um held at Lehigh University the weekend at the end of Spring Break um and though the kids didn't advance to world I think um a congratulations and a thank you to Mr Gregory and his team of mentors and all the students I don't know if people are aware but the kids on the robotics team really start Gathering as soon as school starts and they really work straight through until the competitions and um the mentors and the teachers are are really where with them all the way so just a thank you to to Mr Gregory and everyone who participated and supported that club um if there's no more board comments move on to a first opportunity for public comment anyone from the public wish to make a comment um if there's none we'll be moving on to Executive session we do have a couple things to discuss there so we should probably be probably around 30 minutes give or take and then around 30 minutes and then we'll be back thank you e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay we're back in session um moving on to item seven old [Music] business um I just wanted to make one comment about committee meetings as you can see the committee meetings are listed I believe it's been revised and updated if you are not able to make a committee meeting for whatever reason please um email the admin leader of that committee and copy Paul this way we can see the committee can see how many people are going to be out if it's easier to um reschedule the meeting so if everyone could just be cognizant of that and this list still has two meetings next meeting finance and curriculum so curriculum is the 22nd in April 29th is morning it's Eli's birthday 29th is is 29 so when I see it it means something to me um the other item on there is student achievement followup um if anyone had I know we wanted to keep that under old business if anybody had any follow-up questions um from the presentation at the last meeting well I was just going to ask when are we going to report out when do we report out on the policy meeting that oh during a board member comments for the student there were some outstanding questions from the when we had it I know I had asked about what do the scores really mean like what's a good score or a bad score and like I didn't even know what reaping records were I had to tap here's what we're going to do we we have been compiling responses based on that last meeting so what I suggested to Sandy was let tonight let tonight's meeting occur if there were additional questions we will add those and we'll come back to the board with responses okay like a comprehensive set of responses do you want board members to to say them tonight out loud in public comment do you want people to send them tell board members how to do what they need to do so if you want to say it during if you want to say it now fine but I don't want people to I don't want board members to feel like the only time to ask the question is during the board meeting I'd rather be able to address the issues in a timely manner so whether it's tonight or whether it's tomorrow I'd say that reach out with the questions and we can make sure we get you responses and I can forward this but as I was going through it the English Learners so the ESL students um if you looked at just the high school so you know the state released the performance reports just at the high school they're less than 10% of meeting or exceeding so just some more information around the ESL population how long are they in the program what are we doing to move them out what are we doing I mean even at the the NJ GPA the grade 11 I guess last year it was less than 10% net so how are we like they're never going to graduate like and the graduation rate's dropping so how are we approaching that population in particular particularly if we know if they came into the district so late with a low reading level say we're never going to get them up to be able to graduate but what can we do to help them right so a couple of things and we'll get back to you in terms of responses you know initially you know I don't want to put all um multilingual Learners under one umbrella but at the high school level uh I believe you know if we're talking High School um you know we are dealing with certain instances where students are coming to us um who are uh older in terms of their uh age and their uh academic Journey prior to them arriving here may not have been formalized so now we're taking may come to us and we had this conversation at the policy committee earlier tonight um you know students who are coming to us 16 years old 17 years old and when now we're turning around and having to determine how we're going to um place these uh High School graduation requirements in front of them which sometimes is not realistic we are exploring and I'd like to to think we can launch that in the fall Twilight program an alternative program for students who are um who are older transcript ready to move forward as an option for them to pursue an alternative way to to to graduate um yes there needs to be you know you talk about students in the program obviously we're talking about um access scores and showing that level of proficiency and we need to make sure we have a strong program to to move students forward in that in that way so um we we'll come back and talk a little bit about our multilingual Learners in in particular this year there'll be a presentation that's on May 13th connected to the scop uh training with the shelter instruction observation protocol training uh specifically geared towards our multilingual Learners and how to best navigate them within classroom settings that was a goal for us this year uh so we'll be providing an update on that and I think we'll use that as an opportunity to kind of work you know more holistically uh some of some of the strategies that we're doing to support those students I just had some questions that I just wanted to either reiterate or make sure that we were going to get the answers to um The Varsity tutor numbers I'm still waiting for those I still want to know how many students were identified how many students accepted the invitations what their correlation of achievement is um two as I looked at the student achievement report um I noticed that our special ed population is ex is much lower significantly lower than our general Ed have we or the district ever consider doing a special education audit to see what's going on with our program if there's imp improvements that can be made what's working what's not working if that even well if that exists yeah I mean uh an audit we have not we have not engaged an audit um to that degree but what I will say to you is that um you know there there's a Continuum of students under the special education umbrella you know one of the things that U make students eligible we're talking about learning disabled students is the fact that they are not performing um with their age appropriate peers based on a host of issues whether it's cognitive or NE neurological so uh sometimes I I want to make sure that we're being we should that individual student growth and I recognize that the Department of Education is looking to have the same Benchmark and standard for all students and I respect that but it slightly contradictory when we talk about students being eligible for an individual educational plan but then we're still expecting them to have the same standard as a student that um by all the means is is clearly not in that same predicting it so I I don't want to use that as an excuse though I still want to make sure that we are showing that students who are spending their days with us are showing some level of growth and those students do have goals and objectives within their IEPs and those individual students are and their families are aware of the the growth that that they're um that they're making within those programs sometimes it's a little difficult to compare them to everyone else when we do that um and you know that's just a challenge of special education Across the Nation to be quite Frank now what are we doing in terms of students who are having um you know challenges as it relates to reading um you know we've got a we've got we trained uh two years ago uh the overwhelming majority of our elementary special Educators with Orton Gillingham reading instruction we've got about 13 Wilson certified reading instructors uh within within the district so I think there's a number of things uh in place um and we've got we've got students who are occupying some of our Ava programs selfon environments that you know I don't want to I don't want to discredit the the significant work that those teachers are doing on a daily basis to to to make incremental growth as it relates to students who are non-verbal and can't communicate so I think there's there's a there's a there's a lot of work we're doing it may not always show itself in standardized assessments um but definitely would would engage the board and in overview of our student services department as it relates to some of the things that we have in place to support the individual needs of students we have a we have we have a plethora of things that we're doing um to support individual students are you special at if you just have an IEP it's not a 504 right is it just an IEP just an IEP could be could be speech only You' be eligible for an IEP 504 is it's not an IEP but right but if you have a com right but if you have a 504 you're not classified as specialist it's just an I correct one other thing I thought was interesting when I was looking for this we talked about student absenteeism on here do we have any data on teacher absenteeism that we could put in a we do funny I no I was being serious we can we have we definitely have data on that just be I share that with the board oh okay we won't do a presentation but I'll share I share that data with you definitely just because they're both in Old business have we ever considered an ad hoc committee for student achievement because it's it seems to be there's a lot of information out there that would be good for a committee to look at I I have a note on here that says that I want a committee on a learning committee or respect SL love for learning committee here you go I look at all the work you do is being that so um not have not looked at that explicitly but but definitely something we can explore if there's no further questions or comments we'll move on to item for uh board oh okay okay okay sorry item eight policies to be abolished a policy 910 public relations second before we vote can I ask is that being replaced by anything or are we just taking it off because I didn't see the replacement any other questions P the board please m d yes Miss Murphy yes M boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss Salter yes Miss call yes Miss Luso yes uh item nine item nine mandated policies for first reading a policy 2520 instructional supplies B policy 5305 Health Services Personnel C policy 5308 student health records D policy 5310 Health Services e policy 6112 reimbursement of federal and other Grant expenditures F policy 6115 point4 federal funds duplication of benefits G policy 6311 contracts for goods or services funded by federal grants and H policy 744 School District security second any question whoose the board please miss Drake yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss Salter yes Miss colan yes Miss larusa yes item 10 item 10 mandated regulations for first reading a regulation 5308 student health records B regulation 5310 Health Services C regulation 61151 Federal Awards SL funds internal controls allowability of costs second any questions P the board please M Drake yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel Miss Salter yes Miss Kia yes Miss laruso yes item 11 item 11 recommended policies for first reading a policy 3217 use of corporal punishment B policy 4217 New use of corporal punishment I'm tired okay see oh my go C policy 0144 board member orientation and training second any questions hold board please M Drake yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss Salter yes Miss Kia yes Miss larusa yes item 12 second opportunity for comments are there any board members who wish to make a comment I have a question um a few meetings ago we talked about and I I believe it was in the policy about um I don't know how to properly say it so I hope I don't but you know kind of like having like a nursing room for like students that you know may need it do we have any updates on that um no update I don't believe there's a need for that lactating room I think was the was the was the conversation and I believe we tagged the nurses the heal off place for that to now that could also apply to to staff members as well as students all right thank you so tonight we had our policy committee meeting first Mr Daniels started with explaining that three to four times a year we get updates from Strauss Esme which really pushes out the state mandated policies and codes um our partnership began with them in 2004 and that's why many of our policies have that date on them Mr Daniels reached out to them after we discussed our concern about policies being outdated irrelevant not in compliance so Strauss SMA is going to do an audit of all of our policies and we'll get the results in miday as as to where you know if any or non compant or need to be updated we then discussed he Mr Daniels told us we went over all the policies that we were voting on tonight and gave us great details about all of them mainly most of them were due to revisions in language or a few additions being added some were new policies and there was one being abolished there wasn't many questions on those it was mainly driven by the state then we discussed policies that we immediately thought we needed to be reviewed some of them were policy 5514 which is the parking at the high school because it's just States 12th graders and we now added Juniors um policy 2451 the adult high school I brought up and that led into the discussion of the Twilight program and how it was in the budget for this year but we never got it up and running but it's something that we're looking to do because of the population coming in with lower reading levels grading levels and possibly aging out so we're looking for alternatives for those students policy 2452 we need to look at Community Education policy 2330 homework brought up some concerns with how that seems a little bit outdated um maybe need some new language in that policy also I asked about policy 5460 the graduation requirements discussion because we never really fully discussed that as a board specifically the science which I kept bringing up as a concern so we're going to continue the discussion on that and I also asked if there could possibly be thought to having the board approve the HHS program of studies before it becomes accessible to the students for scheduling just because of the whole AP science and best practice vers policy I just felt like that should have another extra set of eyes that look over over it and not just be made as a unilateral decision so that's what we discussed about possibly adding there is no policy on that and then we also discussed the need to um everybody was open to meeting more frequently so we would each take like a batch of numbers of policies read them over and then you know some of them will be a quick review nothing needs to be changed move on but then at least we could say it was at least reviewed and revised later than 2004 or 2007 but first Mr Daniel suggested and we agreed that we wait for the audit to come back and see what Strauss Esme provides for us and then we have a starting point anybody have any questions yeah that that's a good idea um I didn't realize it was 2004 was the last update um so once we get the audit report uh we'll have multiple meetings like you say in the batch process to discuss each policy and what's the timeline looking into once you get the audit report are you looking at 3 months 6 months night because it does take time uh if is any type of modification made on a policy it to in to the next year or how does it work so mainly the policies that we're talking about as being very outdated are more East Windsor focused because stra SMA is constantly sending the district the State updates so it's those we're those we're good with like I'm not saying all of our policies it's it's a lot of East Windsor Regional School District like the homework the dress code so yes so agree I don't want you to think that all of the policies are from 2004 no um they're not the and you know without I don't want to be irr responsible here but I don't think the overwhelming majority will be but it will be interesting just to see what the audit reveals so we recognize there's a number of policies you're approving routinely that are that are up to date but yes there are still some when Strauss s May partner with the district that are from 2004 so we want to make sure that we need to determine relevance and ensuring that we're still compliant if necessary are there any other board members who have a comment um I just wanted to say thank you uh for the student safety data presentation it was very useful and um much appreciated um if no one else has any comments I just have a quick update um or reminder on the superintendent evaluation um so Mark is going to have his comment submitted into the system by April 26th um and once that goes into the system it triggers for njsba two days later to publish that out to the the board members the non-conflicted board members um so once that gets sent out to everyone's emails if you can we're trying to have the deadline be no later than May 7th to get your comments in for the evaluation um I know that's a really tight turnaround um the because njsba needs to compile all of that Mark's comments and the board members comments to um so it can be reviewed at the second exec session on the May 13th board meeting um if you remember remember when um Maran Friedman came here and gave a and spoke to the board members of an exec session about the superintendent evaluation process she did give us handouts and they do have questions um some of the questions in there if you want to familiarize yourself with that to prepare and be ready for the evaluation um so if you have any questions and that was all I had um if there's no other board comments yes did you have no then we will move on second opportunity for public comment is there anyone from the public wishes to speak there being none we will move to item 13 item 13 motion to approve routine items by exception having read the materials received I move that the board approv the routine agenda items as submitted a staffing April 2024 B Hib report for March 25th 2024 C approved travel and related expenses virtual and in person D request to approve ARP Esser homeless to Grant Amendment e approve curriculum documents F approve heighton high school overnight trip Deca Anaheim California April May 2024 G approve new field trip sites for upcoming H approve new heon high school scholarship opportunity suder and permilla jagdale Memorial Scholarship I approve acceptance of stats medic review course scholarship for hon High School J out of District placement K Professional Services for students L Co-op purchases M Rod's Grant approval n resolution authorizing an execution of the rod Grant o resolution delegation of authority to school administration administrator for supervision of the school facilities project P approval of prescription Insurance Consultation Services Q approval of creative writing services R 2023 2024 tuition agreement with Roosevelt School s Surplus property vehicle T expense and transfer reports of school Monies report for February 2024 you report of the board secretary and financial report February 2024 the bill list of April 15 2024 second I just want to thank the um J jali family for the scholarship are there any other questions I have a question about P um the prescription insurance is this financially is this better than um what we had before for the staff yeah so this is actually going to be something a little different we're not actually looking to replace our prescription plan this consultant is going to actually help us we're in the process of renegotiating our prescription uh rates for next year so they're going to assist in that but really I think where they kind of pay off is they have um some unique um ability to kind of do some deep dives into the prescription paid claims so they're going to be making sure and holding our prescription vendor accountable to making sure things are processed as they should be okay thank you right so the the fee the fee is based on cost savings so basically if they don't save anything they don't get paid anything so no no harm to us I have a question on item a so there was a few Staffing for Title One funding for njsla prep um how are those students identified um as at risk and maybe just in general if we can have some information on how we're using the tile one funding and how we're identifying the students we can provide that to you but I will say generally there's a few different factors obviously students who are eligible for Hoster reasons um one being uh performance on on on the uh State assessment is one area that we would identify students that would benefit from some additional support obviously students that we believe are are um you know um socially social economically uh eligible um but ultimately those funds are used to academic achievement so um we definitely have to make sure we're addressing students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch and also looking for some academic support uh but it's not limited to that and then just on item f um it just raised the question to me that the students have to fundraise or pay for some of the trip themselves and I think it was the same for the cheerleaders that went to Disney do we do anything to help students who can't afford it like on the free and reduced lunch program so that they're not excluded from it because we're definitely not excluding any student uh from a co-curricular or extracurricular opportunity um several years ago the board supported um uh some funds that we portioned to the high school because it's primarily a high school issue where uh where we have these certain events that that occur we are using some dollars to offset cost in general um so no we're not looking to have students um not participate due to financial reasons so there twofold yes fundraising occurs I'm not a huge fundraising fan but I I realize this you know part of where we are um sometimes we have our booster groups that offset cost for things and then like I said we actually and Mr Vincent and I have been kind of working through how do we uh equitably uh um provide financial support through budget to to freay cost as well I had um two questions one this has just popped out at me because of the whole soap Scandal um at last meeting did we decide that it was best just to replace all the soap dispensers at the middle at craps in the high school because no what we're targeting is um pretty much student bathrooms so I think like originally we went through and we we did a full count of all the soap dispensers throughout the district that count with 550 soap dispensers a lot of them are administrative areas they're in classroom very um public spaces where they're observable where we're finding some of the vandalism occurring is in the student bathrooms where staff is usually not hanging around so we're going to start with that and see how we go from there because they're expensive uh the the the um dispensers that we get now we get free from the Soap Company so these are kind of more industrial I'll be polite and a little more um refor reinforced they can take a licking and keep on taking so we're told so we're going to give it a try okay we don't we don't really find a need on the elementary level that they're being abused too bad it's mostly a middle school high school issue got it and my um last question is on item e the curriculum documents up for approval these were the ones that the motion did not pass on January 22 meeting and now they're back up and there's nothing different about them they're the science are passable they have the bare minimum requirements but marketing to honors hospitality and tourism marketing accounting one and accounting two are still not compliant with policy and I don't understand and I'm actually concerned why they are bringing being brought up for vote again in the exact same manner that they failed just say What specifically are you uh do do you not believe is meaning the threshold regarding what's being presented the same thing that I said on January 22nd which was according to the policy at a minimum on the course content or course C course guides it's supposed to have objectives it's supposed to have njls [Music] standards and a host of other things on the policy and if you look at accounting too it these are just there's no standards there's no objectives it's pretty much a table of contents on the four on the four like I said i' I'll pass the science I'll vote Yes for the science there's the bare minimums there but if you were to look at at each of those four with the policy it it says each course guide will contain an appropriate to the course of study content standards objectives Concepts and skills to be taught attitudes and appreciations to be developed suggested activities designed to achieve objectives suggested methods of instruction performance indicators evaluation criteria they don't have that and that's in the policy and that's why I voted no the first time and I'm just concerned that they're coming back up for approval with not one edit made to them M Small do you want to just speak to those those specific courses in terms of format I mean I I wasn't on the board in 2017 I don't know why that why they were passed but if they're up for approval now and the policy states what a course guide is supposed to have and the course guides are supposed to be useful to teachers and parents they're not in compliance okay so I the issue is yeah there is a past practice here for certain courses um and this is consistent with what what's been presented before for certain electives uh I'm not sure specifically why the standards would not be on here but in terms of when you talked about how the course is going to be assessed that is on here and you're right it's not as comprehensive as the others um well that's confusing to me because why are we teaching a course if there's no standards that apply to it okay and I'm going to come back to the point that we've been discussing that best practice is not policy and I want to say that all to you know to the board best practice is not policy it needs to be in policy then if we're not going to in require that to be in our course guides then we need to change the policy on it I as a I don't find these help like I just it it's not helpful we can't say the curriculum is the course guide It's not like the course guide is supposed to be even from this is the only thing that's even in is serving as our curriculum it's not even just the course guide It's serving as our curriculum it can't be a table of contents with a few assessments I have a question with the curriculum committee I'm going to be meeting on April 19 and April 29th 22nd are we able to like table this to talk about that during the curriculum committee our curriculum meeting was actually scheduled to be a followup to the previous curriculum committee session because we had run out of time so we weren't up um but I don't know if this is more of a policy versus standards well a couple things best practices don't always have to align be connected to policy is great if they are I mean there's a number of practices that we engage in that that are not policy oriented however I think it's I think it's understandable to question why the format looks different with certain courses now this is a part of that conversation with the curriculum committee uh in terms of uh how the district has operated as it relates to certain courses under the elective umbrella as it relates to um how we've structured the curriculum uh there was some conversation and explanation that that um provided a rationale for that and the follow-up communication that's part of the discussion and part of it was that some of these courses were um right I don't want to misspeak here but some of the courses that fell under the the elective umbrella sometimes were shortlived sometimes they're not looking to go through um you know the level of lift as it relates to crafting the the comprehensive nature of curriculum for something that um may not exist for a long period of time so I think the question the format uh Karen is understandable I can understand why you know even just from a place of you know uh consistency I think there is a rationale that's that's driving it and I think we're the place right now where we're engaged in a discussion regarding um the format that has been used and trying to provide some background in terms of how we arrived at this position and then ultimately asking board or recommending to the board um you know the direction that we're looking to move forward in um as we move ahead as it relates to some of these elective courses because I think we're only talking about the courses that fall under that elective umbrella well some of them have a lot more detail than others but I just like like I just am curious how the teachers are teaching this to be honest with you because there's not even any objectives on this like it's literally just the table of contents so that's I don't know that's just it's a concern having my educational background and being a teacher I just know that curriculum is more than this and a course guide is more than this and according to our policy a course guide is more than this that's and our job my responsibility is to make sure policies are being followed and I don't like to compare us to other districts but I just pulled up a neighboring district for accounting and theirs is 44 pages long and has standards I don't really know if this is the time or the place to start pulling up other districts curriculum and policies um I just I don't think this is the time or place for it can we pull these off which I think we did in January right I understand I don't I don't think we voted on them in January we didn't vot on them we pull them off right so I don't think anybody voted I think we pulled them off we did vote okay yeah the motion did not carry okay um it seems that we're just sitting here and we're going in a circle with it can we pull them off the agenda perhaps and get I don't know what the I don't know what the solution is I mean part of the issue is I mean this is serving as the framework for the course currently um you know they're on the agenda because this is this is this is honoring a past practice of what was done because we've got other courses that probably fall under this umbrella as well so I don't you know I don't want to cherry-pick these courses I think the feedback is is definitely noted um and I think the part of where we are is determining where we're moving forward as it relased to C so I don't want to belabor it um I think I think the concern is heard and I think that um you know we need to engage in the discussion regarding what that will look like for these courses as we move forward so I don't know if pulling it is is the solution um because I think there has been an explanation as to how this surved I think that obviously there's a concern raised regarding the format and the lack of U I guess depth uh that's on the on the document um so you know it's I'd say that um I mean I don't think we if we were looking to pull I don't think we're pulling all of these I think there's a which there's only select courses that there's concerned about so what which which courses are you concerned about accounting accounting I'm okay with marketing two honors hospitality and tourism and accounting one accounting to hospitality and tourism and marketing two honors the science at least the science ones that are on there the zoology the microbiology and the marine and bio those at least meet the requirements in the written policy I will say yes to those I I I in my good judgment according to policy I I just can't vote I I'm sorry I can't vote Yes on those sorry are these these active electives that are currently they are all active and they'll be active next year as well yeah I I would say that they're on the agenda and board members should vote as they deem necessary and uh and like I said it's not you know we'll continue to move in the Direction Where We Are are addressing the concerns that have been raised do you happen to have the number of that policy 2230 thank you I know that you just said this Mar but could you again go over or just reiterate before we move to a vote so the practice for some electives in the district has been before that some of the electives don't have I just want to make sure we're all clear don't have the standards or don't have Sandy what's the correct terminology for it for certain for for certain electives under the elective umbrella but that's still so they have a syllabus not specific standards and objectives correct and that's just for certain electives Under the Umbrella under the elective umbrella that and itself brings issue I mean every course adopted by the district is supposed to have a curriculum not a syllabus but they're also saying that that's falling within the New Jersey standards too so okay if there's no other questions pull the board please M Drake yes Miss Murphy yes M boli um yes i' have to say no to uh to item e Mr weeks yes abstain from e M Patel yes for everything except e no Miss alter um abstaining from C the line with my name on it for the conference on May 10th and no to e m call you abstain C for island with me no to e yes to all those M laruso yes yes um there's no need for a second executive session motion to adjourn